November 28, 2001
By Dan Rylance
The Oshkosh Common Council Meeting on Wednesday, November 27, was a classic. If you missed the live television broadcast, tune in for Saturday's a.m rerun. I promise you'll not be disappointed. It was a real turkey meeting. In fact, there was so much strutting going on that one would think that Thanksgiving was next week, not last!
The biggest strutter was a Hen, not a Tom. This was, of course, Councilor Melaine Bloechl. She literally took over the meeting. Her excuse was that she had missed a previous meeting on the budget. I can't imagine what she could conjure up if she was gone for a whole month! She seemed hell bent on letting everyone know that she had read the entire 2002 proposed City Budget, page by page. She offered amendment after amendment losing every time by a 5-2 vote. Only her faithful voting companion, Councilor Paul Esslinger, supported each of her amendments. Esslinger's support, however, proved disingenuous when he chickened out of voting against the Budget on the final vote. It's difficult for a Tom to follow a Hen to the oven.
There were other turkeys present. Ken Bender, the town crier, spoke, at least, four times. As usual, he made little sense. He enjoys listening to himself and strutting. He's made a complete fiasco out of the citizen comment portion of the Oshkosh Common Council meetings. Last year, the Council voted to move this agenda item to the end of the meeting to discourage turkey strutting at the meetings. Bender, however, didn't get the message. The problem with citizen comments are turkeys like Bender, not citizen comments. Bender's fourth strut of the meeting even awoke Mayor Jon Dell'Antonia, who had lost the gavel and control of the meeting during the uninterrupted Bloechl show. He asked Bender twice to stop, but Bender just kept talking and strutting.
Councilor Paul Esslinger did some strutting as well. He humbly announced that based on his own personal evaluation, he had done such a remarkable job in his first term, that he deserved a second. I thought evaluating an incumbent was the task of voters, not a Tom!
The final act of Wednesday's meeting was better than pumpkin pie and whipped cream. It was simply delicious. Bloechl sent feathers flying all over the Council chambers. She saved her best strutting for the final scene. With most of her colleagues anxious to leave, she repeated her criticism of downtown revitalization projects while ignoring the needs for a new City Hall and City Garage. Then she announced what some Oshkosh voters had hoped and prayed for some time; she would not be a candidate for reelection in April. Ten years was enough for her and certainly enough for the City as well. She said the City had become too liberal. Many of her past supporters believe she had become too conservative.
There is another side to Bloechl, however, that begs for discussion. This was a $50 million dollar city budget supported by a hefty property tax increase. Moreover, it was the second big property tax increase in two successive years and a third one, maybe even larger, appears to be in the works for 2003. If one discounts all of Bloechl's antics, wasn't she doing what an elected member of the Common Council was elected to do: Represent the taxpayer in controlling city spending?
The fact that she was the only member of the Common Council to offer spending cut amendments speaks more to their silence than to her actions. Why was she the only elected representative in Oshkosh to challenge 2002 City spending? I might add that not one Oshkosh city resident spoke to it, either, or Bender, for all his rants.
The lack of debate marks a political victory for the City Manager form of government in Oshkosh. And if, city residents like repeated property tax increases, the result in 2002, 2003, and so on will prove to be a rerun of Wednesday's meeting. One thing is certain, an elected mayor, would never dare include a $600 a month car allowance for himself in a city budget with a 6% property tax increase for the city residents. Nor would a Common Council, elected in separate wards and accountable to their constituents, let him get away with it.
Bloechl will probably continue her strutting through the end of her term in April of 2002. There is both relief and regret in her departure. Relief because for all of her contrariness and insatiable desire to be the center of attention, she seldom contributed to the quality of life in Oshkosh. Nor will one miss her mean spiritedness directed against new comers who were elected to the Common Council after her, her demagogue behavior against the advisory jury verdict in the Walter Pagel murder or her anti-intellectual hatred of the Grand Opera House.
For all her faults, there remains regret in her departure. She possessed street smarts and courage above that of most of her peers. She was nobody's fool, except her own. She was articulate, speaking without notes, and could easily spot a real turkey with only a short strut. She also should be remembered as the only member of the Oshkosh Common Council to vote against a City Budget with another whopping increase in property taxes. And that's no turkey!
Rylance is a former editorial writer for Knight Ridder newspapers, who resides in Oshkosh and is a regular contributor to this web site as well as the public affairs show Commentary.